Play Now, Pay Later

Pain Is The Price For 1st Fun In Sun

Now that fashion no longer demands a complexion deep-fried in coconut oil, beachgoers do all they can to prevent sunburn, right?

Now that the ozone layer is thinning, skin cancer is lurking behind every freckle and sun-block SPF is measured in double digits, Chicagoans use caution under the fiery, midsummer sun, right?

Nah.

"It never fails: The first hot weekend they come down, don't put sunscreen on, and about two hours later, they're bright red," said Kirk Kleist, assistant manager of beaches and pools for the Chicago Park District. "Or they go to sleep on their side, and then they are half bright red."

On Monday, those lobster-colored layabouts will mince into work, stiffening at the mere thought of a pat on the back.

There they will join volleyball players on crutches, nature enthusiasts wriggling in mosquito-bitten agony and a legion of sore-backed gardeners.

If a four-day weekend is tonic to the soul, it wreaks havoc on bodies used to ergonomically designed office furniture and fluorescent light.

The problem is particularly pronounced at the beginning of the summer, when winter-softened Midwesterners first take to the fields of play.

"Most people, especially on the first nice weekend like this, will suffer some sort of minor injury, strain, soreness," said Dr. Pietro Tonino, a Chicago orthopedist specializing in sports medicine.

Each year, one out of four people suffers an injury requiring medical care, according to a national survey, and doctors say most of those injuries occur during the summer. Throw in unreported strains, soreness, bites and burns, and you have a lot of moaning on any given Monday morning.

The weekend's summer weather, truly sublime after a gloomy spring, brought out especially large crowds--bombarding them with ultraviolet rays and enveloping them in mosquitoes.

Fourth of July festivities took an added toll. Dr. Tom Esposito, a trauma surgeon at Loyola University Medical Center, said fireworks injuries this year were the worst he has seen in six years here.

Viewed together, it all makes leisure look pretty dangerous.

But virtually anybody who rescues or treats injured weekenders agrees on one point: Most of the damage is self-inflicted and easy to prevent.

"We call them accidents, but they're really not accidents," said Esposito, who also studies injury prevention. "They are a disease, and they have a predictable pattern."

That's public health expert Esposito speaking. Esposito the surgeon, frustrated after treating the same preventable injuries year after year, sometimes calls them "stupid human tricks."

But the weekend brought him some more seasonal injuries, including a woman who lit a sparkler inside a car, and a girl who put her hand on a barbecue grill.

Not that every summer injury is foreseeable.

On Friday, a lifeguard at North Avenue Beach, having survived a full shift of natural and human hazards, was crossing the sidewalk to go off duty when a speeding in-line skater blindsided him.

The skater, properly equipped, was uninjured. The lifeguard took three stitches to the head.

But the most pervasive summer threat is plain to see, even if it does come out of the blue.

"I think it's just so easy for people to forget how uncomfortable sunburn can be," said Dr. Jeffrey Melton, a dermatological surgeon at Loyola. "There can be swelling, sometimes even blistering. A person can actually feel quite ill."

A survey taken by Taste of Chicago sponsors on Friday showed 95 percent of the visitors queried wore comfortable shoes to the festival. Only 40 percent reported wearing sunscreen.

Dave Clyne, pharmacy manager at the Walgreens drugstore on North Michigan Avenue, said that occasionally customers ask his advice about sunscreen. More often, however, they come to him pleading for relief.

Other Monday-morning maladies tell more about the sufferer.

Tonino, the sports medicine specialist, said he can usually guess the game by looking at the injury: Back pains plague golfers, knee and wrist trouble can mean in-line skating.

And if the injury is to the hands, the most likely culprit is a Chicago specialty, 16-inch softball.

Like sunburn, most sports injuries can be prevented with a little preparation--regular conditioning and pre-game stretching.

Unlike sunburn, sports injuries are complicated by age, ambition and the gulf between the two.

Tonino was quick to point out that the risks posed by playing sports fall far short of the risks posed by doing nothing.

But a lot of the Monday morning moans could be avoided if enthusiasm were teamed with common sense.

"Not everybody is Michael Jordan," Tonino said. "They see sports on TV, and they go and try to emulate these athletes. They don't appreciate how much conditioning that takes.